Quote by naughtyannie

It's ironic really. I've been banging on for years about having a couple of badges for poems, roughly equivalent to the "Famous" and "Legendary" story badges but with lower "read" requirements, to reflect the lower numbers even the best ones get.

These could actually be achievable by a wider range of people, as well as promoting interest in a genre that Lush does better than most other erotic writing sites.

Have the powers-that-be shown any interest? Not a chance.

But propose something that's hardly anyone's ever going to get, and it's done.

Weird. 🙄

Got to agree. I don't write or even get poetry for the most part beyond rhyming couplets, but the amount of engagement a poem gets here in relation to stories ( especially flash and micros ) is orders of magnitude higher than it is on other erotica sites. That and the aforementioned flash/micros is something Lush does particularly well, and it could do with some prioritization.

Most of the other sites specialize in longer works, and have been around longer. Lush would do well to highlight one of the areas where it outshines them with poetry and short works to attract and retain the readers/writers/poets who prefer them.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Quote by deviantsusie
I don’t get that either but then my activity seems stuck unless a friend comments on another friends activity.

I posted a micro to check out the new editor. Sadly when I cut and pasted from google docs, every return in google docs became a double return so had to manually delete one between every paragraph. Just as well it was a micro 🙄

And I’m not having a go at any developers or mods in posting this, just feeding back that there is a glitch. I was using chrome on a laptop if that helps. 💋♥️

Same. If I delete a line between every paragraph after I copy/paste from Docs, then submit, the spacing adjusts upon submitting to where the spacing looks good in published version. I don't see the proper spacing until after the Submit though. But I think my latest stories look good.

While I haven't tried the new submission form, I had to do special preparations for mine due to spacing issues on the 1.0 submission form as well.

Try a find for: ^p^p and replace it with ^p

The original document will look like utter garbage as a wall of text. ( Keep a readable master copy ) but it came out right once pasted and submitted. May be worth a try if you have the extra lines between paragraphs.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

Quote by RejectReality
It's about 70/30 queue/sail through for me.

I have an unfounded suspicion it might be to do with tidying up spaces at the end of the piece. Maybe on resub, if it trims the whitespace as a service (or something) that triggers the "eeek, the story body is different" and diverts it to the queue instead of passing straight through. But if your story has none at the end, it bypasses it.

A total guess so I might be way off.

Most of these have been through the re-sub process once before for the same reason when previous/next links were introduced under 1.0. If it was that, I think they would have already had anything trimmed the first go-around.

Quote by adele
As long as all you were doing was adding or correctiong the series information and not making any other changes, the stories went right through on Lush v1. I always added a note just in case, but the vast majority right through without moderator intervention. I hope that doesn't change.

It's about 70/30 queue/sail through for me. Seems to be no particular rhyme or reason why. Three chapters of a story will need approval, then the fourth goes through. First chapter requires approval, second goes through, final two require approval. Then a whole 4 part series will go through, and every part of a 10 chapter story will need approval.

That's the same experience I had under the old system as well, so the ease of use and instant re-sorting is still a huge + for me.

It's going to take forever to finish linking everything up though. I wait at least a couple of hours after one's been approved before trying again, and the next one usually goes in the queue as well. Every once in a while I might have a run of luck and change 2-3 without waiting, but it's rare. Last one was just approved 10 minutes ago, so maybe I'll drop another right before I go to bed.

Quote by LakeShoreLimited

Oh, I just saw the new series management page. It has a little icon next to the series name. Should it be the newest at the top or the oldest? I guess that is my call. Now, if they could only deal with that white space under the story problem.

First story in the series at the top, flowing to the final story at the bottom.  When you link up a new one, it will always move to the bottom.  You can then move it as necessary from series management to put it in the proper chronological place.  A nice improvement over what we had.

Now, if only someone could tell me why some existing stories/chapters go straight through without moderation, while others go into the queue, when I'm doing the exact same thing to all of them — adding the series designation, and nothing else.

As a matter of fact, I've actually edited the moderator section on a few of them that went through without moderation, while I didn't change that section ( it still had an old moderator note saying I'm linking them as chapters that serves the purpose ) on some, and those hit the queue.

Baffling.

Not that this is new.  It happened when I was linking chapters under the old system as well.

I'm trying to wait at least a few hours after one goes into the queue and the minor change gets approved.  I have to click the new ( author ) series button once I submit each change to see if it went through or got stuck in the queue, because there's no difference in the prompt.  Thankfully, there's a "in review" notation on those that hit the queue within the series management, so I don't have to dig back through my story list to check.

Someone said it works in Mozilla ( Firefox ) but I haven't tested it yet.  It's worth a go if that's not what you're already using, and if you're willing to go to the trouble of a second browser.  I already use three to keep my different pen names logged in elsewhere, so it's no biggie for me, assuming it does work.

Okay, I've got another one.  The series editing is wonderful.  It's also exactly the code that would allow us to order our story page as we wish, so the heavy lifting on that is already complete.  It's just a matter of implementing it.  Still need the ability to edit existing stories to make them a series, and a button on the story page similar to the "unpublished" button would be nice for quicker access to series editing, but what's there is easy to use and works like a charm.  My existing series are all back in the proper order in a scant couple of minutes.

ETA: Okay, figured out how to create new series.  Didn't realize you could just start typing.  Since adding a series is requiring moderator approval, I guess I'll have to go slow.  Don't want to overload the queue, and there's a lot to link up.

Okay, I've got one.

The full numerical breakdown of the bar graph is an improvement over the original, and I like it.

I will say that if pasting with formatting intact isn't an option, allowing us to use BBcode and have it interpreted into the correct HTML formatting for the final posting would also be acceptable.  I can at least prepare my documents in advance with find/replace to do that.  Doing it with the GUI is what I find too tedious and prone to omission.

Paste with formatting intact, detailed stats, popular lists by category, and the ability to quickly locate one of our own stories via search or removal of the pagination are the deal-breakers for me. The rest is irritating or sucking the joy out of the site for me, but those are what make the effort vs. reward calculation fail to balance.

Paste with formatting is #1 because I would be willing to add cross-venue work if I had that. The rest are discouraging me from writing the short Lush exclusives that don't perform particularly well anywhere else.  I simply don't see them reaching performance levels here that make it worth the effort as things are.

Quote by adele

I realize that it is probably an exercise in futility, but when we are told that very few complaints have been received (this despite the fact that the thread to report bugs was locked because there were too many complaints about missing features) and that some of the features won't be done because the developers say THEIR users didn't like them when they were polled or that 75% of THEIR users access the site on a phone, I just felt we needed to let them see in an open forum if they are right or wrong.

Quote by adele

  1.   Are you an author?

Yes

  2.   Do you primarily use the chat rooms, forums, neither or both.

Forums  

3.   What is the main device you access Lush with? phone/tablet, lappy or PC

PC

  4.   On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the happiest) how happy are you with the chatroom changes?

 Don't care.  Don't use. 

5.   On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the forum changes?

2  Jump to last post links are nice.  Separation between posts is terrible.  Signatures are bare bones. 

 6.   As an author, on a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the story changes?

0 Don't like the new presentation of stories, especially those with top images.

  7.   On a scale of 1 to 5, how happy are you with the general overall design changes?

0 Author features barely exist, and what's there is buggy.

  8.   Which chatroom features do you miss the most? (ex. mention vs just selecting a name, whisper,  "landing" directly into a room, room size, etc)

Don't care.  Don't use.

  9.  Which forum features do you miss the most? (ex. new format, harder to post pics, forum signature, etc.)

Signatures.  Designing my story banners is one of the things that gives me joy.  Being able to use images from galleries other than the main one in the forum.  Being able to preview before submitting a post.

10.  As an author, which story features do you miss the most? (ex. detail vs rounding stats, ability to sort, tags at end of story instead of top, etc.)

Detailed stats.  Pasting with formatting intact.  Popular lists.  Read lists.  Landscape top images.  Sorting our story lists.  Being able to find anything in our story lists ( Need search if it's going to remain paginated ).  Prominence of story badges such as RR, Famous, and Legendary.  The # of stories on the new story page.  Notification when a vote is cast.

11.  Which general features do you miss the most? (ex. black boxes, ability to customize profiles, ability to sort friends, have friends all show on 1 page, settings don't hold, becoming part of a dating site, etc.)

Ability to search by name.  Author listings sortable by # of stories ( ideally, sortable by all stat columns ) 

12. Any other comments you would like to add or if there is anything you are particularly happy with on the new site.

Extremely frustrating for me as well.  I was watching Nude Holly Day climb at about 1k per month toward Legendary, and it's dead in the water now.  I'm half done with a story for the Watersports category ( one of the few remaining for Omnium ) and have no drive to finish it.  They really need to get the author features up and running.  As things are, there's little incentive to publish anything.  If that state of affairs continues for much longer, it's not going to end well.

Well, whadda ya know.  I knew that I had a couple ( surviving ) on the score lists, but didn't know Double Dip actually made the views list.  Thanks for collecting the stats.

Too bad it and the popular lists are now gone.  My views nosedived so hard they hit like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs.

I keep poking my head in, but I don't see myself posting any new stories unless I happen to finish something that I plan to post somewhere else as well.  No motivation for the short Lush-exclusive quickies when the time on page 1 is so short and there's no potential for long-term viewership without those lists.  Feels like tossing them into the void and working twice as hard to do it.

Quote by deviantsusie

The loss of data is particularly annoying - the scores, how I cherished those 1 or 2 votes.. I used to like looking at the bar graphs of how the votes were spread. The number of views. I was slowly watching 'In the Library' heading towards Famous story. Now it's all rounded off. The loss of word counts. I liked being told how many words were in a story, not how long it might take me to read it. 

I was watching "Nude Holly Day" move not so slowly toward Legendary.  ( around 1k per month ) Since the update, it's almost completely stagnant, because the bulk of the reads were coming from its high position on the popular page for Mature, and in turn driving reads to my other work.  There's also either a glitch in the score calculation or someone cast the magical 4 on it that dropped it to 4.99, which means it would have vanished into obscurity anyway, as happened with my previous main driver "Boned" in Milf.  Without notifications of new votes, I have no idea which it is.

Quote by Brookell

So now I have to go outside Lush to do a function that I used to be able to do within Lush.  It's a workaround, but not a very elegant or intuitive one.  The ability to sort is another function I miss.

I am in IT and have done much new development.  The number one rule about implementing a new version of something was never take away functionality.  Even changing how it works, you always left the ability to do it the older way at least for a few releases. It let's you ease users into new things.  So many functions are gone or changed to the point of being less capable.  The few new things (time zone elimination in forums and the My Comments) are nice, but have we lost more than gained.  I haven't posted since the new site went up.  I haven't been interested in posting -- which for any of you who know me understand that's weird.  I haven't stopped writing, just not been posting. 

Believe me, I know.  I also get that this was on an impossible timetable, though.  I'm just as frustrated as you are with the loss of functionality, and finding patience difficult despite knowing there was a hard end date when whatever was ready had to go up.

I'm not writing, but that's me.  Part of it is because Lush is my preferred venue for short stuff, and there's no drive to start those with the current state of things.  I have at least half a dozen 5-50k word stories in progress, but I haven't been feeling them.  Part of my recovery process in these slumps is to write quickies, but with that drive gone...

The effort vs. reward calculation isn't balancing for me right now.  The truncated exposure window for new stories, the loss of the popular lists that were a major driver of reads for me, and the inability to see my own statistics in full severely tips the scales.  The loss of forum signature functionality sucks the life out of me as well.  I enjoyed crafting my banners, and there's no point in doing so as things stand.

If I finish anything ( and if the submission process doesn't prove to be another barrier ) I'll post it, but that's unlikely right now.

Quote by Brookell

I wish the Story List would be closer to how it was.  For example, when I was trying to find a story of my own, I would open the My Stories and the list would be all 194 of my stories.  I would do a Browser 'Find' on a word in the title or a key word and it would show up.  Finding the word 'Accident' brought me 7 stories to check to find what I was looking for.   With the stories broken up by pages, I have 20 pages to try and search through.  Some folks have many more pages.

Using the Search on the Stories page returned over 660 results for 'Accident' with my 7 buried in there somewhere.

Nude Holly Day RejectReality site:lushstories.com

It's hardly ideal, but it works.  You can also enclose the title in quotes "Nude Holly Day" to ensure it searches for those words in that exact order.

Quote by kistinspencil

Quote by RejectReality

Click your ava, and then the "My Comments" link.  It's essentially the same thing.

Not even close

Quote by LakeShoreLimited

Quote by PJH

Quote by TheShyThespian

Quote by Brookell

Quote by JamesLlewellyn

I'm still not getting emails about the authors I'm following. And I know that some have published because I've seen their stories on the (very short) Front Page.

Moreover, I've received ZERO notifications that any of the 53 authors I'm following have published anything. That seems…unlikely.

Thanks.

My turn for a Me Too!  I hadn't noticed how few emails I was getting, thanks for the heads up!

Do we no longer get emails about the votes and comments we receive? You only get your notifications if you're in the site - the emails worked because it told you to go look. 

I miss the emails which told me that someone had commented or whatever and the one that said my story had been approved. Being in the UK, I used to like checking my emails in the morning to see how many comments (and friend requests?) I had received 'overnight'. I suppose that some of the things that I miss might still re-appear-it would be nice if they did. As I have not yet had a story published since the move I do not know if my copyright thingy applies on here either.

The "timeline" option is missing, isn't it? That was nice to have.

Click your ava, and then the "My Comments" link.  It's essentially the same thing.

At the very least, our story lists need to be searchable via a search bar dedicated to that purpose.  As things stand, it's easier to go to Google and do a search using the "site:lushstories.com" limiter to find our own stories than it is to do on the site.  Of course, until we have access to all of our full statistics ( and not the rounded off display of selected statistics currently available ) there's not much point in checking.

The recommended profile banner size ( or cover image, or whatever it's called ) also doesn't work on my phone.  It's cut off from both sides in portrait or landscape.  The inconsistent placement of your avatar image in relation to the banner with respect to phone vs. tablet or desktop also makes it virtually impossible to design your banner to accommodate it.  You essentially have to surrender over half of the bottom third of the banner and live with blank space for whatever you do want on there to be visible on both phones and desktop.

I'm trying to be patient, because I've done massive overhauls before, and I know what a pain it is.  The fact that the author features are what got the short end of the stick baffles me, though.

Quote by noll


True, though you probably don't want an extremely long page to load either, and there will also be a difference between stories below and above the 'fold'.

Maybe part of the list could be a random selection from the latest stories. That way stories that quickly get pushed out of view, or entirely off the list, would still get displayed some additional number times.

Quote by noll


While I can't answer your question for Lush/SS, the fact that the majority of users use a mobile device to browse the web these days indicates a decline in screen real estate. This means less space for stories or anything else for that matter.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith
@LakeShoreLimited and seeker4. True. If it's used well and is totally left field like that, and feeds the story with intrigue then why the hell not! But if it's just thrown in as a name because the author picked one at random and it doesn't fit the character and their backstory, then it can be momentarily jarring for a reader.

For fantasy and sci-fi, I sometimes find authors go too far the other way to call their characters unpronounceable or obscure things (or bad spellings of conventional names) to push the idea that it's an alternative reality. If I'm reading and can't figure out if the object being referred to is a person or place, I tend to switch off.



*snore*